FordGTGuy
08-12-2004, 12:16 PM
All this material is from Ign.com I will not qouted it so its easier to read:
August 09, 2004 - When Microsoft first unveiled Forza Motorsport at its E3 Press Conference in May, the racing sim was immediately seen as a direct competitor to Sony's Gran Turismo 4. While on the surface the two may appear as equal sides of the same coin, spending some extra time with Forza shows that comparing it strictly to GT 4 leaves out a good portion of what makes Forza Motorsports special. Don't think of Forza as GT for the Xbox. Instead, think of it as GT meets Need for Speed Underground with a dash of Pokemon thrown in for good measure.
Consider this: There are one million Xbox Live gamers. With the customization options offered in Forza, every single one of them can have a unique vehicle racing on Xbox Live. And more importantly, if you want to unlock everything Forza has to offer, you're gonna need to do some trading, because no one gamer profile can collect 'em all. That's where the whole Pokemon comparison comes in. Don't worry, you'll understand how all of this works by the time you finish this mondo article.
The MS internal development team behind Forza has been working on the racer for over two years and they have always had a unique vision for what type of game they wanted from the very beginning. From the get-go, the team wanted to achieve three things: Realistic graphics, sim-quality physics, and car collection/ownership.
Visual Medium
The graphical quality can be seen in every screenshot and translates well into action on the screen, with real-time shadows and reflections making the car as much a part of the track as the rubber lining separating asphalt from grass. Day, dusk, and night time all find representation in 17 different track environments taking gamers around the world to real locations such as the ever-popular Laguna Seca.
Running at a crisp 60 frames per second, the tracks and cars both earn degradation throughout a race. Oil and tire marks mar the roadway and if you scrape a concrete wall you'll leave some paint as a memento that remains throughout the race. Every licensed car -- more than 200 total -- features full damage modeling. But this isn't just about crumpling bumpers and popping taillights. Bash into another car or slam into a retaining wall and your paint will chip. By the end of a race, should you be as skilled as I am (and that's not very skilled at all), your car will look like it's run through the thickets, with scraps and paint chips heaviest on the front bumper and fenders. Minor abrasions and more massive damage factor in throughout the race -- it's not just the big crunches that earn a visual reward.
Get Physical
Microsoft has taken great pains in providing the most realistic physics to ever grace a racing sim. Every possible car-performance factor has been realized. Some of it you'll have trouble seeing, such as the fully working suspension systems, which can be modified to create greater stabilization. It's just not possible to see an eight-arm suspension at work, since it all happens underneath the car, but you'll definitely feel it.
Tires received some of the heaviest attention, as they affect performance much more than the casual racing fan may realize. Pressure, temperature, and wear aren't just long-term issues. Tires heat up as you race and will heat different depending on how you drive, where you drive, and what you drive. All of this affects friction -- which means traction (or lack thereof). Tires do not follow the Newtonian laws of physics. The more load on a tire, the less efficient it as at returning friction. The less friction you have, the less grip you've got on the track. Driving then, when mixed with smart and accurate physics, becomes more realistic as you are forced to think about how much speed you can put into a turn without spinning out. And trust me, with the assists off, if you try and drive like you're in Project Gotham Racing, your tail will be up a divider without a paddle.
Of course, the other standard physics considerations are all accounted for as well. There are hundreds of mathematics being calculated every second of a race for every car -- including AI drivers -- and your handling and modding make a huge difference. Not only will every car online look unique, because of the exhaustive modding options and the variation in handling by a million different drivers, every car will race differently online as well.
Smarter Intelligence
Realistic physics we've all seen before. But one area where racers -- particularly sim racers -- have always suffered is AI. A lot of this is because, in the past, the physics of AI cars have been different than those of a human-raced vehicle. Back in the earlier days of GT 1 and 2, cars were essentially running on one wheel in the cent of the chassis and then rocket-sledded around the track. As games progressed, things were moved up to four-tire rocket-sleds. Still, the physics were never real-world for AI cars. That's because it's not an easy thing to do. Imagine trying to process all of the physic calculations of 16 cars all at once. Yeah, it's a tough deal, but Forza is going to try and pull it off. From everything I've seen, they're gonna succeed.
Once the physics for all cars on the track are equal, everyone (real and computer-controlled) is racing under the same rules. Now comes time for true AI. To handle this, Microsoft brought in a robotics AI expert, someone who had never worked on a game before. This AI expert never had a hint as to the rocket-sled mentality of AI's past, so had no idea of what was the norm for a video game racer. Instead, he went about creating a learning AI which he named Drivatar.
This learning AI watches you race and learns from you and can mimic you. He can improve on you as well. You can use this technology to train your own racing team to race just like you, but the applications go much further than this. The Forza team sets up several Xboxes each night and lets them race. The Drivatar AI learns from them every time. It's not just learning the tendencies on a general level, but for every car and track and with every modification. How does this one drive in a Civic Type R with modifications X, Y, and Z handle this one specific turn in Laguna Seca on the third lap? Yes it's that exact. If you brake late and spin out, the AI learns from this and is smart enough to make adjustments based on your failure. Every night Drivatar is learning, becoming smarter and better with every car on every track in every condition so that it can make smart real-time "human" decisions in a race.
With AI difficulty settings, the team can then make this AI more or less confident on turns or adjust its ability to apply what it's learning so that anyone can have a shot at winning a race, but those who want a true challenge will constantly have to improve their game.
If you're not that great at racers, don't worry. Forza has five different assist settings that can be toggled on and off to help out the general consumer. While the assist will compensate for mistakes, it will also slow your progression through the single-player campaign. Every race in single-player has points (cash!) to be earned, but your AI and assist settings alter how much you earn. If you are great, you can turn off all the assists, kick up the AI, and earn points faster. If you suck, you can still get through Forza, it's just going to require a lot more races to do so. A fair system, if you ask me. And you did just ask me, didn't you?
Make it Your Own
What we've yet to truly touch on in our coverage of Forza is how customization and collection will play a vital role in Forza. The Forza team wanted gamers to feel a sense of pride and ownership in their cars, the same way people do in the real world. First up was creating the most robust customization features yet to be seen in a racer. That's not hyperbole, that's fact.
For every car you will have access to 6 masks, each with 100 layers for dropping in any variety of designs and logos. A layer is just like in Photoshop, one skin (out of a whopping 100) where you can choose from a large variety of patterns and logos. Switch up the layers easily, moving one shape to the foreground while dropping another to the backdrop of your vehicular mural. What you can do with all this is pretty amazing as you can easily manipulate and color patterns and insignias. Enlarge a racing stripe, paint it purple, move it to the top corner of the fender -- It's all a snap. If you can think it, you can probably design it.
Now, I said that there were six masks. A mask is basically one side of the car, so you have hood, rear, sides, roof, and bumper to alter to meet your visual desires. That's 6 masks, 100 layers each, making for 600 layers for design -- you've seen nothing like it, hell, not even in the real world. All the tools you could hope for are included. There's a stamp so you can easily recreate patterns and you can even clone your entire skin and swap with your buddies to create your own legion of pink poodle Porches. Imagine rollin' your pack of wild pink Porches down the wide roads of Xbox Live, striking terror into the hearts of weaker racers across the 'net. What sweet, sweet satisfaction.
But pimping a car with sick graphics is only half the battle. Modding your car won't just be about upgrading the engine, putting in new shocks, and figuring out which tires are best for a given track. With fully-licensed parts from the biggest manufacturers, you'll be able to tweak just about every car. However, real world sensibilities apply. There will be about 60 heavily-moddable cars, those that in the real world see a lot of modification. Of course you are gonna mod the hell out of your Civic, but the Ferrari 360 Moderna? Don't expect to have many mod options, because there's little you can (or would) do to actually make that car any better.
The development team is hoping to appeal to both the general and hardcore audience. So expect some basic text on the affects every part will have on your car, so that newbies can learn as they build their cars. For those who want more nitty-gritty, you'll have access to engine graphs and your own expert knowledge to make for informed decisions.
So, What About Pokemon?
Remember how I said this game had some Pokemon elements? I wasn't joking. When you first kick up Forza, you'll create a profile. Part of the process involves choosing a region -- USA, Europe, or Asia. You don't have to pick a region you're from, but you can only pick one and that's where you are from, for the rest of your use with that profile. This is a big, big deal in the world of Forza because your region dictates what parts and cars are readily available. Whaaaaa?!? Yeah, a Chevy is commonplace in the US, but good luck buying on in Asia.
Every car and part has a rarity rating based on your region. If something is rare, it's going to cost you more. It may not even be available to you at all. How do you fix this? By trading cars and parts with people who's profiles are from other regions where those things aren't rare. You can do this online or offline (with a memory card save). Think of it like Pokemon Blue and Red. Crazy, huh?
The purpose for this is to help create a massive virtual racing community. Not only will every gamer have a unique car, but they're gonna be swapping cars and parts like six-graders swap spit at summer camp.
The Xbox Live Mystery
One area Microsoft remains mum is the online arena. We really don't know much of anything and haven only played 6-player System Link races at E3. But Microsoft is definitely planning for big things with Xbox Live and Forza. Expect full Live 3.0 integration and more.
My guess (and hope) is that Microsoft will create an online showroom where gamers can upload their unique cars for everyone to look at and even test drive over Xbox Live. I mean, how else can you know if you wanna trade for someone's ride unless you can take it for a test run? Makes sense. Let's cross our fingers and hope.
Coming Soon...
Forza Motorsports is driving onto a retail shelf near you this winter. We'll have lots, lots, lots, lots, lots more on this promising racer in the coming months. Expect us to continue to reveal more cars off the car list and look for in-depth features on every aspect of Forza. Will it be better than GT 4? Who cares, GT 4 isn't on Xbox and can't be played on Xbox Live. 'Nuff said.
http://pics.xs.to/pics/04084/920720_20040510_screen003.jpg
http://pics.xs.to/pics/04084/920720_20040510_screen006.jpg
http://pics.xs.to/pics/04084/920720_20040510_screen004.jpg
http://pics.xs.to/pics/04084/920720_20040510_screen005.jpg
http://pics.xs.to/pics/04084/920720_20040510_screen002.jpg
August 09, 2004 - When Microsoft first unveiled Forza Motorsport at its E3 Press Conference in May, the racing sim was immediately seen as a direct competitor to Sony's Gran Turismo 4. While on the surface the two may appear as equal sides of the same coin, spending some extra time with Forza shows that comparing it strictly to GT 4 leaves out a good portion of what makes Forza Motorsports special. Don't think of Forza as GT for the Xbox. Instead, think of it as GT meets Need for Speed Underground with a dash of Pokemon thrown in for good measure.
Consider this: There are one million Xbox Live gamers. With the customization options offered in Forza, every single one of them can have a unique vehicle racing on Xbox Live. And more importantly, if you want to unlock everything Forza has to offer, you're gonna need to do some trading, because no one gamer profile can collect 'em all. That's where the whole Pokemon comparison comes in. Don't worry, you'll understand how all of this works by the time you finish this mondo article.
The MS internal development team behind Forza has been working on the racer for over two years and they have always had a unique vision for what type of game they wanted from the very beginning. From the get-go, the team wanted to achieve three things: Realistic graphics, sim-quality physics, and car collection/ownership.
Visual Medium
The graphical quality can be seen in every screenshot and translates well into action on the screen, with real-time shadows and reflections making the car as much a part of the track as the rubber lining separating asphalt from grass. Day, dusk, and night time all find representation in 17 different track environments taking gamers around the world to real locations such as the ever-popular Laguna Seca.
Running at a crisp 60 frames per second, the tracks and cars both earn degradation throughout a race. Oil and tire marks mar the roadway and if you scrape a concrete wall you'll leave some paint as a memento that remains throughout the race. Every licensed car -- more than 200 total -- features full damage modeling. But this isn't just about crumpling bumpers and popping taillights. Bash into another car or slam into a retaining wall and your paint will chip. By the end of a race, should you be as skilled as I am (and that's not very skilled at all), your car will look like it's run through the thickets, with scraps and paint chips heaviest on the front bumper and fenders. Minor abrasions and more massive damage factor in throughout the race -- it's not just the big crunches that earn a visual reward.
Get Physical
Microsoft has taken great pains in providing the most realistic physics to ever grace a racing sim. Every possible car-performance factor has been realized. Some of it you'll have trouble seeing, such as the fully working suspension systems, which can be modified to create greater stabilization. It's just not possible to see an eight-arm suspension at work, since it all happens underneath the car, but you'll definitely feel it.
Tires received some of the heaviest attention, as they affect performance much more than the casual racing fan may realize. Pressure, temperature, and wear aren't just long-term issues. Tires heat up as you race and will heat different depending on how you drive, where you drive, and what you drive. All of this affects friction -- which means traction (or lack thereof). Tires do not follow the Newtonian laws of physics. The more load on a tire, the less efficient it as at returning friction. The less friction you have, the less grip you've got on the track. Driving then, when mixed with smart and accurate physics, becomes more realistic as you are forced to think about how much speed you can put into a turn without spinning out. And trust me, with the assists off, if you try and drive like you're in Project Gotham Racing, your tail will be up a divider without a paddle.
Of course, the other standard physics considerations are all accounted for as well. There are hundreds of mathematics being calculated every second of a race for every car -- including AI drivers -- and your handling and modding make a huge difference. Not only will every car online look unique, because of the exhaustive modding options and the variation in handling by a million different drivers, every car will race differently online as well.
Smarter Intelligence
Realistic physics we've all seen before. But one area where racers -- particularly sim racers -- have always suffered is AI. A lot of this is because, in the past, the physics of AI cars have been different than those of a human-raced vehicle. Back in the earlier days of GT 1 and 2, cars were essentially running on one wheel in the cent of the chassis and then rocket-sledded around the track. As games progressed, things were moved up to four-tire rocket-sleds. Still, the physics were never real-world for AI cars. That's because it's not an easy thing to do. Imagine trying to process all of the physic calculations of 16 cars all at once. Yeah, it's a tough deal, but Forza is going to try and pull it off. From everything I've seen, they're gonna succeed.
Once the physics for all cars on the track are equal, everyone (real and computer-controlled) is racing under the same rules. Now comes time for true AI. To handle this, Microsoft brought in a robotics AI expert, someone who had never worked on a game before. This AI expert never had a hint as to the rocket-sled mentality of AI's past, so had no idea of what was the norm for a video game racer. Instead, he went about creating a learning AI which he named Drivatar.
This learning AI watches you race and learns from you and can mimic you. He can improve on you as well. You can use this technology to train your own racing team to race just like you, but the applications go much further than this. The Forza team sets up several Xboxes each night and lets them race. The Drivatar AI learns from them every time. It's not just learning the tendencies on a general level, but for every car and track and with every modification. How does this one drive in a Civic Type R with modifications X, Y, and Z handle this one specific turn in Laguna Seca on the third lap? Yes it's that exact. If you brake late and spin out, the AI learns from this and is smart enough to make adjustments based on your failure. Every night Drivatar is learning, becoming smarter and better with every car on every track in every condition so that it can make smart real-time "human" decisions in a race.
With AI difficulty settings, the team can then make this AI more or less confident on turns or adjust its ability to apply what it's learning so that anyone can have a shot at winning a race, but those who want a true challenge will constantly have to improve their game.
If you're not that great at racers, don't worry. Forza has five different assist settings that can be toggled on and off to help out the general consumer. While the assist will compensate for mistakes, it will also slow your progression through the single-player campaign. Every race in single-player has points (cash!) to be earned, but your AI and assist settings alter how much you earn. If you are great, you can turn off all the assists, kick up the AI, and earn points faster. If you suck, you can still get through Forza, it's just going to require a lot more races to do so. A fair system, if you ask me. And you did just ask me, didn't you?
Make it Your Own
What we've yet to truly touch on in our coverage of Forza is how customization and collection will play a vital role in Forza. The Forza team wanted gamers to feel a sense of pride and ownership in their cars, the same way people do in the real world. First up was creating the most robust customization features yet to be seen in a racer. That's not hyperbole, that's fact.
For every car you will have access to 6 masks, each with 100 layers for dropping in any variety of designs and logos. A layer is just like in Photoshop, one skin (out of a whopping 100) where you can choose from a large variety of patterns and logos. Switch up the layers easily, moving one shape to the foreground while dropping another to the backdrop of your vehicular mural. What you can do with all this is pretty amazing as you can easily manipulate and color patterns and insignias. Enlarge a racing stripe, paint it purple, move it to the top corner of the fender -- It's all a snap. If you can think it, you can probably design it.
Now, I said that there were six masks. A mask is basically one side of the car, so you have hood, rear, sides, roof, and bumper to alter to meet your visual desires. That's 6 masks, 100 layers each, making for 600 layers for design -- you've seen nothing like it, hell, not even in the real world. All the tools you could hope for are included. There's a stamp so you can easily recreate patterns and you can even clone your entire skin and swap with your buddies to create your own legion of pink poodle Porches. Imagine rollin' your pack of wild pink Porches down the wide roads of Xbox Live, striking terror into the hearts of weaker racers across the 'net. What sweet, sweet satisfaction.
But pimping a car with sick graphics is only half the battle. Modding your car won't just be about upgrading the engine, putting in new shocks, and figuring out which tires are best for a given track. With fully-licensed parts from the biggest manufacturers, you'll be able to tweak just about every car. However, real world sensibilities apply. There will be about 60 heavily-moddable cars, those that in the real world see a lot of modification. Of course you are gonna mod the hell out of your Civic, but the Ferrari 360 Moderna? Don't expect to have many mod options, because there's little you can (or would) do to actually make that car any better.
The development team is hoping to appeal to both the general and hardcore audience. So expect some basic text on the affects every part will have on your car, so that newbies can learn as they build their cars. For those who want more nitty-gritty, you'll have access to engine graphs and your own expert knowledge to make for informed decisions.
So, What About Pokemon?
Remember how I said this game had some Pokemon elements? I wasn't joking. When you first kick up Forza, you'll create a profile. Part of the process involves choosing a region -- USA, Europe, or Asia. You don't have to pick a region you're from, but you can only pick one and that's where you are from, for the rest of your use with that profile. This is a big, big deal in the world of Forza because your region dictates what parts and cars are readily available. Whaaaaa?!? Yeah, a Chevy is commonplace in the US, but good luck buying on in Asia.
Every car and part has a rarity rating based on your region. If something is rare, it's going to cost you more. It may not even be available to you at all. How do you fix this? By trading cars and parts with people who's profiles are from other regions where those things aren't rare. You can do this online or offline (with a memory card save). Think of it like Pokemon Blue and Red. Crazy, huh?
The purpose for this is to help create a massive virtual racing community. Not only will every gamer have a unique car, but they're gonna be swapping cars and parts like six-graders swap spit at summer camp.
The Xbox Live Mystery
One area Microsoft remains mum is the online arena. We really don't know much of anything and haven only played 6-player System Link races at E3. But Microsoft is definitely planning for big things with Xbox Live and Forza. Expect full Live 3.0 integration and more.
My guess (and hope) is that Microsoft will create an online showroom where gamers can upload their unique cars for everyone to look at and even test drive over Xbox Live. I mean, how else can you know if you wanna trade for someone's ride unless you can take it for a test run? Makes sense. Let's cross our fingers and hope.
Coming Soon...
Forza Motorsports is driving onto a retail shelf near you this winter. We'll have lots, lots, lots, lots, lots more on this promising racer in the coming months. Expect us to continue to reveal more cars off the car list and look for in-depth features on every aspect of Forza. Will it be better than GT 4? Who cares, GT 4 isn't on Xbox and can't be played on Xbox Live. 'Nuff said.
http://pics.xs.to/pics/04084/920720_20040510_screen003.jpg
http://pics.xs.to/pics/04084/920720_20040510_screen006.jpg
http://pics.xs.to/pics/04084/920720_20040510_screen004.jpg
http://pics.xs.to/pics/04084/920720_20040510_screen005.jpg
http://pics.xs.to/pics/04084/920720_20040510_screen002.jpg